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SCIENCE AND THE INFINITE
Or
Through a Window in the Blank Wall
by
SYDNEY T. KLEIN
[Illustration: "THE MYSTERY OF THE APEX"
VIEW NO. 3]
Second Impression
London
William Rider & Son, Limited
Cathedral House, Paternoster Row, E.C.
1917
First Published November 1912
Reprinted September 1917
TO
THE RIGHT HON.
ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
PREFACE
In venturing to prepare this little volume for the eyes of the reading
public, I am fully aware of the difficulties of the subject and the
inadequacy of the expressions I have been able to employ, but I have
made the attempt at the request of those who have found consolation in
some of the thoughts herein embodied; and the messages left by others
before they passed away, embolden me to hope that many others may find
in this volume some points of interest which will help them to
appreciate better the "joys" which this life has for those who know
how to look for them, and that perhaps others may even gain a clearer
conception of that which awaits us beyond the Veil.
Many of us allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the small worries and
vexations of everyday life, clothing them with a reality quite
disproportionate to their importance; we are too apt to look at them,
as it were, through a powerful microscope, piling power upon power of
magnification, until we have made mountains out of mole-hills,
whereas if we treated them at their true value we should look at them
through a telescope, in the reverse direction, when they would appear
not only trivial, but would be seen to be too remote to have any
material effect on our lives.
The sub-title of this volume, and indeed its inception, arose from my
lately coming in contact with one of those establishments which are
doing for humanity what a mother's arms do for the child who is "sick
unto death"--a beautiful home with cheerful rooms and cheerful nurses,
where patients are tenderly cared for after severe operations, carried
through by our most famous surgeons, some cases, alas, almost hopeless
from the first. At the head of this establishment was one of those
kindly self-abnegating personalities, whose loving sympathy and
encouragement have comforted the dying and smoothed the path for many
a weary pilgrim passing from this life to the next. With immense
responsibilities on her shoulders, and after a day full of strenuous
work, the head of this establishment would often sit through the night
for hours by the couch of those whose lives could not possibly be
prolonged for more than a few days. It was a few simple answers
elicited by the questions brought to me from those poor sufferers, and
the way such answers seemed to calm anxieties connected with the fear
of death and to render the impenetrable Veil more transparent, which
suggested the title, "Through a Window in the Blank Wall."
I do not wish to lay claim to having made any startling discovery;
similar thoughts, especially those concerning the non-reality of Time
and Space, have no doubt occurred to others, but the whole problem
"What is the Reality?" has been insistently pressing on me ever since
I can remember, and I have tried to give here in simple colloquial
language, without any attempt at rhetoric, the conclusions I have
personally come to as to what is the Truth.
The study of ancient and modern philosophic theories is useful as
showing how impossible it is, for even the greatest thinkers of any
age, to grasp the Absolute with our understanding or to measure the
Infinite with our finite units. The propounders of all these theories
seem to me to be, without exception, looking in the wrong direction
for the "Reality of Being"; they are all arguing from the standpoint
of "Intellectualism" in a similar manner to that of the "Theologians"
referred to in View Three. Our latest expositor of this, M. Henri
Bergson, bases his theory upon "Life" being the Reality; this he
postulates is a "flowing" in Time, and _Movement_ therefore becomes
for him the Reality; and yet we know that Motion is but the product
of Time and Space, and these are only the two modes or _limitations_
under which our senses act and upon which our very consciousness of
living depends. Surely the Absolute cannot be localised, must be
Omnipresent, and therefore independent of Space--cannot have a
beginning or end, must be Omniscient, and therefore independent of
Time; these two unrealities can therefore have no existence in
"Reality of Being." If, then, there is any truth in "Intuition," we
have, in this theory, the Reality, "Life," not only limited by the
unreal but actually dependent for its very existence upon those
limitations! In these Views I have attempted, on the contrary, to show
that Time and Space have no existence apart from our Physical Senses;
they are the modes only under which we appreciate motion, or what we
call physical phenomena, and as our conceptional knowledge is based
upon our perceptional knowledge, our very consciousness of living is
limited by Time and Space, and we must surely therefore look behind
consciousness itself, beyond the conditioning in Time and Space for
the Reality of Being, otherwise _physical motion_, the product of
these two limitations, would become the Reality of Being.
I have also suggested reasons for looking upon physical life as a
mode of frequency, akin to Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Chemical
Action, the Vibration of a Tuning Fork, or the Swing of a Pendulum,
and therefore a transient phenomenon having to do only with the Race;
Life can under these conditions only be looked upon as a reality in
the same sense in which all other forms of energy or matter appear
real to our finite senses--namely, as the shadows or manifestations of
the Absolute on our limited plane of Consciousness.
However strongly I may be convinced--as I am--of the truth of my
arguments, and however sure I may be that many others will not only
agree with my conclusions, but will see that in "Introspection" rather
than in "Intellectualism" lies the key to the Mystery, I do not wish
to appear dogmatic in any of the suggestions contained in this volume;
I am stating my own convictions, but at the same time I fully
recognise that the presentation of the Absolute, with its infinite
variety of aspects, must necessarily be different to every individual;
we are all of the same genus, but each individual Ego is, as it were,
a different species, and I do not therefore expect that my attempt to
solve the Riddle of the Universe will appeal to all alike. It is,
however, a true saying that "there is something to be learnt from
every human being," and if I have by these suggestions succeeded in
augmenting the number of those who have already started on the true
"Quest," and have helped, however imperfectly, to enrich some lives
with the "joy" of knowing their oneness with the All-loving, my aim
has indeed been attained.
SYDNEY T. KLEIN.
"HATHERLOW," REIGATE,
_1st June 1912._
CONTENTS
PAGE
VIEW ONE
CLEARING THE APPROACH 1
VIEW TWO
THE VISION 19
VIEW THREE
MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 36
VIEW FOUR
LOVE IN ACTION 71
VIEW FIVE
THE PHYSICAL FILM 100
VIEW SIX
SPACE 122
VIEW SEVEN
TIME 141
VIEW EIGHT
CREATION 165
SCIENCE AND THE INFINITE
VIEW ONE
CLEARING THE APPROACH
The proof that the Human Race is still in its infancy may be seen in
the fact that we still require Symbolism to help us to maintain and
carry forward abstract thought to higher levels, even as children
require picture books for that purpose. The Glamour of Symbolism,
Rapture of Music, and Ideal of Art, which come to us in later years,
had their beginnings when to the child every blade of grass was a
fairy tale and a grass plot a marvellous fairy forest. The great
aspiration of the Human Race is to gain a knowledge of the Reality,
the Noumenon behind the phenomenon; but the fact that from infancy we
have been accustomed to confine our attention wholly to the objective,
believing that to be the reality, has surrounded us with a concrete
boundary wall through which we can only at times, with difficulty, get
transient glimpses of that which is beyond. It is only in recent
years that we have been able to realise that it is the Invisible which
is the Real, that the visible is only its shadow or its manifestation
in the Physical Universe, and that Time and Space have no existence
apart from our physical senses, in short, that they are only the modes
or limits under which those senses act or receive their impressions
and by which they are necessarily rendered finite.
The difficulty is that our physical senses only perceive the surface
of our surroundings, and that we have hitherto been looking at the
Woof of Nature as though it were the glass of a window covered with
patterns, smudges, flies, &c., comprising all that we call physical
phenomena and which, when analysed in terms of Time and Space, produce
the appearance of succession and motion. It requires a keener
perception, unbounded by these limitations, to look through the glass
at the Reality which is beyond. I propose then in a series of short
views, through a window not hitherto unshuttered and in a direction
which I believe has not before been attempted, to lead those of my
readers who have the necessary aspiration, patience, and, above all,
strenuous persistence, to a watch-tower, situated well above the mists
and illusions of our ordinary everyday thoughts, whence they will find
it possible to get a glimpse of a strange new country, and where those
who have by practice once attained to its clear perception, will be
able to continue the study by themselves and thus get further insight
into that wonderful region of Thought which I have called "True
Occultism"--the knowledge of the Invisible which is the Real in place
of the Visible which is only its shadow.
Let us first try and understand the conditions under which phenomena
are presented to us. In our perception of sight, we find the greater
the light, the greater the shadow; a light placed over a table throws
a shadow on the floor, though not sufficient to prevent our seeing the
pattern of the carpet; increase the light and the shadow appears now
so dark that no pattern or carpet can be seen; not that there is now
less light under the table but the light above has to our sense of
sight created or made manifest a greater darkness. Thus, throughout
the Universe, as interpreted by our Physical Ego, we find phenomena
ranging themselves under the form of positive and negative, the
apparently Real and the Unreal.
The Good making manifest its negative Evil.
The Beautiful " " " " Ugly.
The True " " " " False.
Knowledge " " " " Ignorance.
Light " " " " Darkness.
Heat " " " " Cold.
But the negatives have no real existence. As in the case of light we
see that the shadow is only the absence of light, so the negative of
Goodness, _i.e._ Evil, may in reality be looked upon as folly or
wasting of opportunity for exercising the Good. Owing to their
limitations our thoughts are based upon _relativity_, and it is hardly
thinkable that we could, under our present conditions, have any
cognisance of the positive without its negative; we shall in fact see
later on that it is by examining the Physical, the negative or shadow,
that we can best gain a knowledge of the Spiritual, the positive or
real.
The first step to a clear understanding of this, is to recognise that
it is not we who are looking out upon Nature but that it is the
Reality which is ever trying to enter and come into touch with us
through our senses, and is persistently trying to waken within us a
knowledge of the sublimest truths. It is difficult to realise this, as
from infancy we have been accustomed to confine our attention wholly
to the objective, believing that to be the reality.
Let us try and grasp this fact. If we analyse our sense of sight, we
find that the only impression made on our bodies by external objects
is the image formed upon the retina; we have no cognisance of the
separate electro-magnetic rills forming that image, which, reflected
from all parts of an object, fall upon the eye at different angles,
constituting form, and with different frequencies giving colour to
that image; that image is only formed when we turn our eyes in the
right direction to allow those rills to enter; and, whereas those
rills are incessantly beating on the outside of our sense organ when
the eyelid is closed, they can make no impression unless we allow them
to enter by raising that shutter. It is not then any volition from
within that goes out to seize upon and grasp the truths from Nature,
but the phenomena are as it were forcing their way into our
consciousness. This is more difficult to realise when the object is
near to us, as we are apt to confound it with our sense of touch,
which requires us to stretch out our hand to the object, but it is
clearer when we take an object far away. In our telescopes we catch
the rills of light which started from a star a thousand years ago and
the image is still formed on the retina _now_ although those rills are
in fact a thousand years old and, invisible to our unaided eye, have
been falling upon mankind from the beginning of life on this globe,
trying to get an entrance to consciousness. It was, however, only
when, by evolution of thought, the knowledge of optics had produced
the telescope that it became possible not only for that star to make
itself known to us but to declare to us its distance, its size, and
conditions of existence, and even the different elemental substances
of which it was composed a thousand years ago. Yet, when we now allow
its image to form on the retina, our consciousness insists on fixing
its attention upon that star as an outside object, refusing to allow
that it is only an image inside the eye and making it difficult to
realise that that star may have disappeared and had no existence for
the past 999 years, although in ordinary parlance we are looking at
and seeing it there now.
I have referred above to the sense of touch; it is, I think, clear
that the first impression a child can have of sight must take the form
of feeling the image on its retina, as though the object were actually
inside the head, and it could have no idea that it was outside until,
by touching with the hand, it would gradually learn by experience that
the tangible outside object corresponded with the image located in the
head; this is fully borne out by the testimony of men who, born blind,
have, by an operation, received their sight late in life; in each case
their first experience of seeing gave the impression that the object
was touching the eye, and they were quite unable to recognise by sight
an object such as a cup or plate or a round ball which they had
commonly handled and knew perfectly well by touch; in fact, the idea
of an object formed by the sense of touch is so absolutely different
to that formed by the sense of sight that it would be impossible
without past experience to conclude that the two sensations referred
to one and the same object. The image formed on the retina has nothing
in common with the sense of hardness, coldness, and weight experienced
by touch, the only impression on the retina being that of colour or
shade, and an outline; it is, however, hardly conceivable that even
the outline of form would be recognised by the eye until touch had
proved that form comprised also solidity and that the two ideas had
certain motions in common both in duration in Time and extension in
Space.
Again, our senses of sight and hearing are alike based on the
appreciation of frequencies of different rapidity; brightness and
colour in light are equivalent to loudness and pitch in sound, but in
sound we have no equivalent to perception of form or situation in
space; it gives us no knowledge of the existence of objects when
situated at great distances, nor can movements be followed even at
short distances without having material contact, by means of the air,
with the object; sight indeed appears to have to do with Space- and
sound with Time-perception. In examining Nature by means of our
senses we find we are so hemmed in by what we have always taken for
granted and so bound down by modes of reasoning derived from what we
have seen, heard, or felt in our daily life, that we are sadly
hampered in our search after the truth. It is difficult to sweep the
erroneous concepts aside and make a fresh start. In fact the great
difficulty in studying the Reality underlying Nature is analogous to
our inability to isolate and study the different sounds themselves
which fall upon the ear, if our own language is being uttered, without
being forced to consider the meaning we have always attached to those
sounds.
Let us now go back to the contention that it is not we who are looking
out upon Nature but that our senses are being bombarded from without;
we are living in a world of continuous and multitudinous changes, and
as our senses require change or motion for their excitation, without
those changes we could have no cognisance of our surroundings, we
should have no consciousness of living; but if we base our thought
entirely on sense perception, taking for granted that Time and Space
have reality instead of recognising that they are only modes or limits
under which those senses act, the Wall will ever remain opaque to us.
Let us try and make this clearer. If we analyse the impression we
receive from Motion, we find it is made up of the product of our two
limitations, it is the time that an object takes to go over a certain
space. We must come therefore to the conclusion also that Motion
itself has no existence in reality apart from our senses. The result
of not being able to appreciate this, is that the finiteness of our
sense, caused by its dependence on Motion for excitation, surrounds us
with illusions; one of these illusions is what we call solidity or
continuity of sensation. If you hold a cannon-ball in your hand,
perception by the sense of touch tells you that it is continuous, or
what is called solid and hard; but it is not so in reality except as a
concept limited by our finite senses. A fair analogy would be to liken
it to a swarm of bees, for we know that it is composed of an immense
number of independent atoms or molecules which are darting about, and
circling round each other at an enormous speed but never touching;
they are also pulsating at a definite enormous rate; we can at will
increase their motion by heat or reduce by cold; if our touch
perception were sensitive enough we should feel those motions and
should not have the sensation of a solid. We have a similar case of
limitation in our other senses, which we shall grasp better in another
View through our Window. We can hear beats only up to fifteen in a
second, beyond that number they give the sensation of a musical or
continuous sound. In our sense of sight we can see pulsations or
intermittent flashes up to only six in a second, beyond that number
they give the sensation of a continuous light; a gas jet, if
extinguished and relit six times in a second, can be seen to flicker,
but beyond that rate is to our sense of sight a steady flame. The
effect may also be shown by making the top of a match red-hot; when
stationary or moving slowly, it is a point of light, but, moved
quickly, it becomes a continuous line of light.
Even apart from our senses we find Motion giving the characteristics
of solidity: a wheel with only a few spokes, if rotated quickly
enough, becomes quite impermeable to any substance, however small,
thrown at it; a thin jet of water only half an inch in diameter, if
discharged at great pressure equivalent to a column of water of 500
metres, cannot be cut even with an axe, it resists as though it were
made of the hardest steel; a thin cord, hanging from a vertical axis,
and being revolved very quickly, becomes rigid, and if struck with a
hammer it resists and resounds like a rod of wood; a thin chain and
even a loop of string, if revolved at great speed over a vertical
pulley, becomes rigid and, if allowed to escape from the pulley, will
run along the ground as a hoop.
Now with regard to this limit of time perception, which gives us the
phenomenon of Solidity, I have lately been able to devise an
arrangement which, acting as a microscope for Time, gives the
sensation of an increase in sight perception up to several thousand
units per second; it is based on the fact that though the eye can only
see six times per second it can see for the one-millionth part of a
second. An example of this is the well-known experiment of seeing a
bullet in its flight; the bullet makes electrical connection resulting
in a spark which illuminates the bullet when opposite the eye. The
electrical spark exists only for the millionth of a second, and as the
bullet in that time has no perceptible movement it is seen standing
absolutely still with all marks upon it quite visible to the eye. When
Sight perception is increased up to the rate at which time may be said
to flow for any particular object we apparently get into the reality,
the permanent _now_ where motion ceases to exist as a sensation. A
tuning-fork, kept vibrating, by means of an electro-magnet, at 2000
times per second, may to our sense of sight be gradually slowed down
and, optically, brought absolutely to a standstill, for as long as
desired, and the smallest irregularity of its surface may be minutely
examined, though it continues to be heard and felt vibrating at that
enormous rate. I have made several experiments in this direction, and
some very curious facts connected with the sensation of Motion are
brought to light by means of this increase in perceptive power. If the
sense of sight is increased to 125 units per second, motion at the
rate of one inch per second is barely visible; taking the common
house-fly, whose wings vibrate about 400 times per second, its units
of perception would appear to be about two-thirds of those beats, as I
found it had no cognisance of Motion below two inches per second; you
can put your finger on any fly provided you do not approach it faster
than the above rate, it turns its head up to look at your finger but
can see no motion in it; if you approach at over three inches per
second it will always fly away before you are within a foot. I found
that a dragon-fly, whose wings vibrate about 200 times per second, had
only half the number of unit perceptions of the fly and could
apparently see motion at about one inch per second but not under. In
the converse of the above we have then the principle of a Microscope
for Time, somewhat similar to the Microscope for Space of our
laboratories. If our perception were increased sufficiently we could
slow down any motion for examination, however rapid; there would be no
difficulty in following a lightning flash or even arresting its
visible motion for purposes of investigation without interfering with
the natural sequence of cause and effect.
If, on the other hand, our perception were decreased below six times
per second, all motion would be accelerated, until with perception
reduced to one unit in twenty-four hours the sun would appear only as
a band across the sky, and we could not follow its motion any more
than, as we have seen, we could follow the point of a red-hot match.
If perception were reduced far enough, plants and trees would grow up
visibly before our eyes. But we must leave this subject now, as this
and the Time Microscope will be treated in a later View.
Let us try and appreciate the fact that, under our present conditions,
our conceptions of the immense and minute--namely, extension in Space,
and that of quick and slow or duration in Time--are purely relative,
and that from this arise those pseudo-conceptions which we call the
infinitely extended and the infinitely lasting. Under our present
limitations it is impossible for us to grasp the whole of any Truth,
if we could do that, there would be no such mystery of Infinity to
puzzle us; we could, as it were, see all around it, but that is again
looking through another window. We are now considering _relativity_.
If we cut off the very end of the point of the finest needle, we get
so minute a particle of steel that it is hardly visible to the naked
eye, and yet we know that that small speck contains not only millions
but millions of millions of what are called atoms, all in intense
motion and never touching each other. Try and conceive how small each
of these atoms must be, and then try and grasp the fact, only lately
proved by the discovery of Radio-activity, that each of these atoms is
a great family made up of bodies analogous to the planets of our solar
system and whose rate of motion is comparable only to that of Light.
This is not theory, it is fact clearly demonstrated to us by the study
of Radio-activity. Curiously enough, we know more about these bodies
than we do of the atom itself; we actually know their size and weight
and the speed with which they move. We do not yet know what is at the
centre of this system, but we do know that each of these bodies is as
far away from the centre as our planet is from the sun (93,000,000
miles), and as far from its neighbours as our planet is, _relatively
to its size_. And now, for the purpose of grasping this subject of
relativity, I want you to ask yourself whether it is conceivable that
a world, so small as those bodies are, could possibly be inhabited by
sentient beings. Leaving you to form your own conclusion upon this
point, I will ask you to follow me down another path leading to the
elucidation of the same subject.
If at this moment we and all our surroundings were reduced to half
their size and everything were moving twice as quickly, we should
absolutely have no cognisance of any change, neither could we possibly
note any difference if everything were reduced to a hundredth part of
the original size and were going a hundred times quicker; and even
when reduced a thousand or a million times, or to such minuteness that
the whole of our solar system with its revolving planets became no
larger than one of those atoms in the needle point, and the whole of
the starry universe therefore reduced to the size of the needle point,
its millions of suns coinciding with the millions of planetary systems
in that steel particle--our earth would still revolve round the sun,
though no larger than one of those minute planetary particles and
travelling at the rate of light, but we should still have no knowledge
of any change, in fact, our life would go on as usual, though it was
difficult a few minutes ago to think it conceivable that so small a
globe could be inhabited by sentient beings.
Once more let us consider that the change is made in the direction of
expansion in space and slowing down of Time; let all our surroundings
be so enormously increased that each of the atoms in the steel point
became as large as our solar system and the steel point as large as
the visible universe, each atom therefore taking the place of a star,
and motion being reduced in proportion; it is still absolutely
inconceivable that we could know of any change having taken place,
though the length of our needle, which was at first, say, one inch,
would now be so great that light, travelling 186,000 miles per second,
would take 500,000 years to traverse its length, and the stature of
each one of us would be so great that light would require over
36,000,000 years to travel from head to foot, and that 36,000,000
years would have to be multiplied 163,000,000 times, making 5860
millions of millions of years to represent the time that an ordinary
_sneeze_ would take under such conditions. And yet we have only gone
towards the infinitely great exactly as far as we at first went
towards the infinitely small, and it is still absolutely inconceivable
that we could be conscious of any change, our everyday life would go
on as usual, we should be quite oblivious to the fact that every
second of time, with all its incidents and thoughts, had been
lengthened to 5860 millions of millions of years. Do we not now begin
to grasp the fact that immensity and minuteness in extension, and
motion in duration, are figments only of our finite minds, that Time
and Space have no objective reality apart from our physical senses,
that they are only the modes under which we receive impressions of our
surroundings? With perfect perception we should know that the only
Reality is the Spiritual, the Here comprising all Space and the Now
all Time.
One more look through the window before we part, and we may see what I
consider the greatest miracle in our everyday life: The Inner-self of
each one of us, being part of the Reality or Spiritual, is independent
of Space limitations and must therefore be _Omnipresent_, is
independent of Time and therefore _Omniscient_. This inevitable
deduction will be explained more fully in another View.
It is from this store of knowledge that our Physical Ego is ever
trying to win fresh forms of thought, and, in response to our
persistent endeavours, that Inner-self, from time to time, buds out a
new thought; the Physical Ego has already prepared the clothing with
which that bud must be clad before it can come into conscious thought,
because, as Max Mueller has shown us, we have to form words before we
can think; so does the Physical Ego clothe that ethereal thought in
physical language, and by means of its organ of speech it sends that
thought forth into the air in the form of hundreds of thousands of
vibrations of different shapes and sizes, some large, some small, some
quick, some slow, travelling in all directions and filling the
surrounding space; there is nothing in those vibrations but physical
movement, but each separate movement is an integral part or thread of
that clothing. Another Physical Ego receives these multitudinous
vibrations by means of its sense organ, weaves them together into the
same physical garment, and actually becomes possessed of that ethereal
thought--an unexplained marvel, and probably the most wonderful
occurrence in our daily existence, especially as it often enables the
second Physical Ego to gain fresh knowledge from its own Real
Personality. Now, in connection with this, consider the fact, already
emphasized, that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature, but
that it is the Reality which is ever trying to make itself known to us
by bombarding our sense organs with the particular physical impulses
to which those organs can respond, and, if we aspire to gain a
knowledge of what is behind the physical, it is clear that all our
endeavours must be towards weaving these impulses into garments and
then learning from them the sublime Truths which the Reality is ever
trying to divulge to us.
VIEW TWO
THE VISION
"Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven," is in true consonance
with the old philosophic dictum that "Everything in heaven must have
its counterpart on earth"; in other words, the Reality has all Its
multitudinous manifestations, every noumenon its phenomenon, in the
physical universe. If we now examine those traits of our surroundings
which affect us most, and best help us to reach the highest level of
abstract thought of which our nature is capable, we find that it is
the recognition of the Beauty (comprising also the Good and the True)
in everything, which constitutes the power held over our minds by what
we may call the Glamour of Symbolism, the Rapture of Music, and the
Ideal of Art. But this influence is still only _sensuous_, it does not
carry us beyond the extension of that Wonderment and Enchantment which
had their birth with our first visit to Fairyland. This is, I think,
evident, as Beauty is not the Reality; it is only what may be called
the sensuous expression of the Reality or Spiritual on the physical
plane. Although we have no words to express, nor indeed minds to
grasp, the wonders and glories of that which is behind the Veil, it is
possible for some of us to get a glimpse of it through our Window, and
to those the following pages may be helpful, but to others the Wall
will remain blank; and, here at the commencement, I should like to
warn those who have not been through a certain experience, to which I
shall refer, that no words of mine will open the Window for them; at
the same time it is probable that many of my readers, who think at
this stage that they have no knowledge of the subject of this View,
will, as we proceed, recognise in the view through the Window
something they have experienced more than once in their lifetime, and
to these I address myself.
Let us first try to understand what we know concerning ourselves. The
longer one lives and the more one studies the mystery of "Being," the
more one is forced to the conclusion that in every Human Being there
are two Personalities, call them what you like--"the _Real_ and its
Image," "the _Spiritual_ and its Material Shadow," or "the
_Transcendental_ and its Physical Ego." The former in each of these
duads is, as referred to in our first View, not conditioned in Time
and Space, is independent of Extension and Duration, and must
therefore be Omnipresent and Omniscient, whereas the latter, being
subservient to Time and Space, can only think in finite words,
requires succession of ideas to accumulate knowledge, is dependent on
perception of movements for forming concepts of its surroundings, and,
without this perception, it would have no knowledge of existence.
Let us go back into the far distant past, before the frame and brain
of what we now call the genus Homo was fully developed: he was then an
animal pure and simple, conscious of living but knowing neither good
nor evil; there was nothing in his thoughts more perfect than himself;
it was the golden age of innocency; he was a being enjoying himself in
a perfect state of nature with absolute freedom from responsibility of
action. But, as ages rolled on, under the great law of evolution, his
brain was enlarging and gradually being prepared for a great and
wonderful event, which was to make an enormous change in his mode of
living and his outlook on the future. As seeds may fall continually
for thousands of years upon hard rock without being able to germinate,
until gradually, by the disintegration of the rock, soil is formed,
enabling the seed at last to take root; so for countless ages was the
mind of that noble animal being prepared until, in the fulfilment of
time, the Spiritual took root and he became a living soul. The change
was marvellous; he was now aware of something higher and more perfect
than himself, he found that he was able to form ideals above his
ability to attain to, resulting in a sense of inferiority, akin to a
"Fall"; he was conscious of the difference of Right and Wrong, and
felt happy and blessed when he followed the Good, but ashamed and
accursed when he chose the Evil; he became upright in stature, and
able to communicate his thoughts and wishes to his fellows by means of
language; and by feeling his freedom to choose between the Good,
Beautiful, and True on one hand, and the Evil, Ugly, and False on the
other, he became aware that he was responsible and answerable to a
mysterious higher Being for his actions. This at once raised him far
above other animals, and he gradually began to feel the presence
within him of a wonderful power, the nucleus of that Transcendental
Self which had taken root, and which, from that age to this, has urged
Man ever forward first to form, and then struggle to attain, higher
Ideals of Perfection. As a mountaineer who, with stern persistence,
struggles upward from height to height, gaining at each step a clearer
and broader view, so do we, as we progress in our struggle upwards,
toward the understanding of Perfection, ever see more and more clearly
that the Invisible is the Real, that the visible is only its shadow,
that our Spiritual Personality is akin to that Great Reality, that we
cannot search out and know that Personality; it is not an idea, it
cannot be perceived by our senses, any more than we can see a sound by
our sense of sight or measure an Infinity by our finite units; all we
can so far do is to feel and mark its effect in guiding our Physical
Ego to choose the real from the shadow, the plus from the minus,
receiving back in some marvellous mode of reflex action the power to
draw further nourishment from the Infinite. As that Inner Personality
becomes more and more firmly established, higher ideals and knowledge
of the Reality bud out, and, as these require the clothing of finite
expressions before they can become part of our consciousness, so are
they clothed by our Physical Ego and become forms of thought; and,
although the Physical Ego is only the shadow or image, projected on
the physical screen, of the Real Personality, we are able, by
examining these emanations and marking their affinity to the Good, the
Beautiful, and the True, to attain at times to more than transient
glimpses of the loveliness of that which is behind the veil. As in a
river flowing down to the sea, a small eddy, however small, once
started with power to increase, may, if it continues in midstream,
instead of getting entangled with the weeds and pebbles near the
bank, gather to itself so large a volume of water, that, when it
reaches the sea, it has become a great independent force; so is each
of us endowed, as we come into this life, with a spark of the Great
Reality, with potential force to draw from the Infinite in proportion
to our conscientious endeavours to keep ourselves free from the
deadening effects of mundane frivolities and enticements, turning our
faces ever towards the light rather than to the shadow, until our
personality becomes a permanent entity, commanding an individual
existence when the physical clothing of this life is worn out, and for
us all shadows disappear.
If man became a conscious being on some such analogous lines as
indicated, it is clear that he is, as it were, the offspring of two
distinct natures, and subject to two widely separated influences; the
Spiritual ever urging him towards improvement in the direction of the
Real or Perfect, and the Physical or Animal instincts inviting him in
the opposite direction. These latter instincts are not wrong in
themselves, in a purely animal nature, but are made manifest as urging
him in the direction of the shadow or Imperfect when they come in
contact, and therefore in competition, with the Spiritual. Neither the
Spiritual nor the Physical can be said to possess Free-will; they must
work in opposite directions, but this competition for influence over
our actions provides the basis for the exercise of man's
Free-will--the choice between progression and stagnation. The
Spiritual influence must conquer in the long run, as every step under
that influence is a step towards the Real and can never be lost; the
apparent steps in the other direction are only negative or retarding,
and can have no real existence, except as a drag on the wheel which is
always moving in the direction of Perfection, thus hindering the
process of growth of the Personality.
The stages in development of the Physical Ego and its final absorption
in the Transcendental may perhaps be stated as follows--
The Physical Ego loquitur:
"I become aware of being surrounded by phenomena, I will to
see--I perceive and wonder what is the meaning of
everything--I begin to think--I reflect by combining former
experiences--I am conscious that I am, and that I am free to
choose between Right and Wrong, but that I am responsible
for my actions to a Higher Power; that what I call 'I am' is
itself only the shadow, or in some incomprehensible sense
the breathing organ, of a wonderful divine Afflatus or Power
which is growing up within, or in intimate connection with
me, and which itself is akin to the Reality. Owing to my
senses being finite I cannot with my utmost thought form a
direct concept of that power, although I feel that it
comprises all that is good and real in me, and is in fact my
true personality; I am conscious of it ever urging me
forward towards the Good, Beautiful, and True, and that each
step I take in that direction (especially when taken in
opposition to the dictates of physical instincts) results in
a further growth of that Transcendental Self. With that
growth I recognise that it is steadily gaining power over my
thoughts and aspirations. I learn that the whole physical
Universe is a manifestation of the Will of the Spiritual,
that every phenomenon is as it were a sublime thought, that
it should be my greatest individual aspiration to try to
interpret those thoughts, or when, as it seems at present,
our stage in the evolution of thought is not far enough
advanced, I should during my short term of life do my best
to help forward the knowledge of the Good, Beautiful, and
True for those who come after. As I grow old the Real Ego in
me seems to be taking my place, the central activity of my
life is being shifted, as I feel I am growing in some way
independent of earthly desires and aspirations, and, when
the term of my temporary sojourn here draws to a close, I
feel myself slackening my hold of the physical until at last
I leave go entirely, and my physical clothing, having
fulfilled its use, drops off and passes away, carrying with
it all limitations of Time and Space. I awake as from a
dream to find my true heritage in the Spiritual Universe."
If we try to form a conception of the stages of growth of the
Transcendental Self it would, I think, be somewhat as follows:
The first consciousness}
of the Spiritual } I know that Love is the Summum Bonum.
entity would be.... }
As it became nourished } I love.
it would be.... }
Then.... I love with my whole being.
Then.... I know that I am part of God and God is Love.
And lastly.... I am perfected in Loving and Knowing.
And the above is the best description I have been able to formulate of
the development of the Mystical Sense by means of which we can get a
view of the Reality through our Window. I will try to give my own
experience of this, which will, I know, wake an echo in other hearts,
as I have met those who have felt the same. From a child I always had
an intense feeling that Love was the one thing above all worth having
in life, and, as I grew older and became aware that my real self was
akin to the Great Spirit, at certain times of elation or what might
be called a kind of ecstasy, I had an overpowering sense of longing
for union with the Reality, an intense love and craving to become one
with the All-loving. When analysed later in life this was recognised
as similar in kind, though different in degree, to the feeling which,
when in the country, surrounded by charming scenery, wild flowers, the
depths of a forest glade, or even the gentle splash of a mountain
stream, makes one always want to open one's arms wide to embrace and
hold fast the beautiful in Nature, as though one's Physical Ego, wooed
by the Beautiful which is the sensuous (not sensual) expression of the
Spiritual, longed to become one with the Physical, as the Personality
or Transcendental Ego craves to become one with the Reality. It is the
same intense feeling which makes a lover, looking into the eyes of his
beloved, long to become united in the perfection of loving and
knowing, to be one with that being in whom he has discovered a
likeness akin to the highest ideal of which he himself is capable of
forming a conception.
As in heaven, so on earth the Physical Ego, though only a shadow, has
in its sphere the same fundamental characteristic craving as the
Transcendental Personality has for that which is akin to it, and it is
this wonderful love that, as the old adage says, makes the world go
round. It is the most powerful incentive on earth, and is implanted
in our natures for the good and furtherance of the race; it is, in
fact, the manifestation on the material plane of that craving of the
Inner self for union with, and being perfected in loving and knowing,
that Infinite Love of which it is itself the likeness. If we can
realise that everything on the physical plane is a shadow, symbol, or
manifestation of that which is in the Transcendental, the Mystical
Sense, through contemplating these as symbols, enables us at certain
times, alas! too seldom and fleeting in character, to get beyond the
Physical; but those of my readers who have been _there_ will know how
impossible it is to describe, in direct words, which would carry any
meaning, either the path by which the experience is gained or a true
account of the experience itself. I will try, however, and I think I
may be able to lead my readers, by indirect inductive suggestion, to a
view of even these difficult subjects, by using the knowledge we have
already gained in our first view through this Window. If an artist
were required to draw a representation of the Omniscient
Transcendental Self, budding out new forms of thought in response to
the conscientious efforts of, and the providing of suitable clothing
by, the Physical Ego, as referred to in View No. 1, he would be
obliged to make use of symbolic forms, and I want to make it quite
clear that the description I am attempting must necessarily be clothed
in symbolic language and reasoning, and must not be taken as in any
way the key by which the door of "the sanctuary" may be opened; it is
only possible by it to help the mind to grasp the fact that there is a
Window through which such things may be seen, the rest depends upon
the personality of the seer.
Now bear in mind that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature,
but that it is the Reality, which, by means of the physical, is
persistently striving to enter into our consciousness, to tell us
what? [Greek: Theos agape estin] (God is Love). As in Thompson's
suggestive poem, "The Hound of Heaven"--the Hidden which desires to be
found--the Reality is ever hunting us, and will never leave us till He
has taught us to know and therefore to love Him, and, as seen in our
first view, the first step is to try to see through the woof of nature
to the Reality beyond. To this may also be added the attempt to hear
the "silence" beyond the audible. Try now to look upon the whole
"visible" as a background comprising landscape, sea, and sky--we shall
get help in this direction in a later View--and then bring that
background nearer and nearer to your consciousness. It requires
practice, but it can be done; it may help you if you remember the
fact that the whole of that visible scene is actually depicted on the
_surface_ of your retina and _has no other existence for you_. The
nearer you can get the background to approach, the more clearly you
can see that the whole physical world of our senses is but a thin
veil, a mere soap film, which at death is pricked and parts asunder,
leaving us in the presence of the Reality underlying all phenomena.
The same may be accomplished with the "audible," which is indeed part
of the same physical film, though this is not at first easy to
recognise. As pointed out in View No. 1, there is little in common
between our sense of sight and hearing; but the chirp of birds, the
hum of bees, the rustle of wind in the leaves, the ripple of a stream,
the distant sound of sheep bells, and lowing of cattle form a
background of sound which may be coaxed to approach you; the only
knowledge you have of such sounds is their impression or image on the
flat tympanum of your ear; they have _no other existence for you_; and
again you may recognise that the physical is but a thin transient
film. With the approach of the physical film all material sensation
becomes as it were blurred, as near objects become when the eye looks
at the horizon, and gradually escapes from consciousness.
I have tried in the foregoing to suggest a method by which our Window
may be unshuttered; it has necessarily been only an oblique view and
clothed in symbolic phraseology, but those who have been able to grasp
its meaning will now have attained to what may be called a state of
_self-forgetting_, the silencing or quieting down of the Physical Ego;
sight and sound perceptions have been put in the background of
consciousness, and it becomes possible to worship or love the very
essence of beauty without the distraction of sense analysis and
synthesis or temptation to form intellectual conceptions.